It is two days after the Women’s March and I am scrolling my Facebook feed, trying anything to distract from the fact that my youngest child is behind a set of doors, anesthetized, while technicians shoot images of his brain.

And then our child is born autistic, and here in front of us is that level of aloneness we have worked our whole lives not to feel. And to love them as deeply as we do, we have to accept our total separation.